Salvage Conquest

by Chris Kennedy

  “Nothing,” Jillian said brightly, popping up from behind a low shelf of percussive devices.

  “You know the captain doesn’t like us to bring grenades onto stations,” Elma chided, even as Sinan scooped up a belt of the tiny death bombs.

  “But—and hear me out—what if we need them and don’t have them? Then the captain will be all disappointed, everyone dies, and Dekko haunts the ship alone for at least twenty minutes before he blows himself up avenging us.” Sinan held up one of the nastiest ones, packed with tiny shrapnel, and danced it toward Elma.

  “Tragic,” Jillian murmured, one side of her mouth twitching as she attempted not to smile.

  “You know I love them, and the cap—”

  “And the captain what?” Selithra moved soundlessly, which seemed unlikely for such a long-legged being. It also explained how she was able to retake her ship from ferocious pirates. After she drew alongside Sinan, the captain wriggled her nose in amusement. “Oh, that’s what. No grenades.”

  “I’d say you never let us have any fun, but you did let me bring a flamethrower on that second ship we took back in Ominar.” Sinan put the grenade back in its crate with a sigh.

  “If we play it right at the station, we’ll get to throw plenty of grenades into some pirates, I’m sure.” Selithra went to her corner, where all the captain’s favorites had been carefully racked or stowed.

  “Why do we get to throw grenades in ships and not stations?” Jillian asked. Given she mouthed the answer alongside the captain, Elma figured the human liked her routines as much as the Isloran did.

  “You blow a hole in a pirated ship, you take out the pirates, and still get paid. Blow a hole in a station, you take out innocents, and we pay.” Selithra extended her long, spotted neck, turning slightly so her face nearly reached back to Jillian. “As you well know, we try to avoid those innocent deaths.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Unabashed, Jillian waggled her fingers at the Isloran and returned to strapping herself up with her preferred weapons for potential combat—a mix of voltage-stunning batons and projectile guns.

  Sinan preferred blunt force weapons and projectiles, and as usual, Elma loaded up with blades. One gun for potential longer distances—happily, human and Pikith hands were similarly scaled, so Elma had been able to supplement her skills and arsenal since Jillian had joined.

  “Smilp-bots are loaded?” Sinan asked, slipping her breather mask into one of the pouches at her waist. While they never anticipated a loss in breathable air, always better to prepare for the worst. It reminded Elma to do the same, though it seemed less likely to be needed on a station than when they boarded a hostile ship.

  “Carver and Dot will have everything ready if we need it.” Selithra completed her neck-stretches and returned to her more relaxed proportions.

  The Smilps rarely left the ship since the time one terrible boarding action had halved their number. Their ability to gather intel was nearly as valuable as their mechanical skills, so rather than losing them entirely, Selithra had set them to creating slightly smaller, electronic versions of themselves. The Smilp-bots—each controlled by one of the non-bot Smilps—went in low enough to escape the initial round of fire and tended to disappear into ducts and passageways before secondary waves arrived. Loaded with projectile darts in a plethora of flavors—poison, sedative, bladed—they could also defend themselves or provide a small forward attack.

  Sometimes Elma considered building a Pikith-bot, but that wouldn’t be as fun as taking pirate ships herself.

  “You don’t want one for the station?” Jillian paused in pulling on the studded gloves she favored for uncertain visits. Stylish and functional, as she liked to say. Like most humans, she wasn’t particularly strong, but the gloves added a handy heft if it came down to punches.

  In the early days, Elma had been surprised how often it, in fact, did come down to punches, but then she got to know Jillian better.

  “We don’t need to go in with one. If something comes up, Carver and Dot will get one through the airlock without any fuss.” The captain pulled on a lined jacket over her sleeveless top and tilted her long head at the rest of her crew.

  “Ready!” Elma answered the silent question, fastening her own tight-fitting jacket. It wouldn’t stop everything, but it didn’t slow her down and would give her some padding if it came to violence, and it was so worth the extra warmth.

  “Let’s see what they got.” Sinan flexed her claws before retracting them properly, and they fell into step behind the captain.

  Carver waited on the ceiling above the charges Sinan had rigged, ready to drop and shoot if backup were required, and Elma held her palms up to him in greeting. The Smilp waved a few feet back at her, and then the cher-clunk of the airlock opening pulled her attention back to the moment at hand.

  Two figures stood in the dim corridor on the other side of the station’s airlock, eight limbs between the two of them prominently displayed to show the lack of ready weapons.

  “Captain Selithra of the Venatrix, you and your crew are made welcome to the Yrba.” A pause. “I see that you are armed, and you are, of course, able to bring your weapons onto the station. Any discharge or injury brings a corresponding fine, up to and including possession of your ship.”

  “Your point is understood, Yrba.” Pleasantries aside, Selithra led the way through the short tube and stepped first onto the station. Elma popped out right behind her, covering the right side of the corridor as Jillian took the left. Sinan waited behind them until the captain nodded.

  “I’m Mrive, Promoter in the Githan Trade Council.” The taller figure, green-hued and six limbed, folded its top four limbs in an intricate gesture as it slightly bent its two legs. It gestured to the other figure, which had a similar hue and number of appendages, but double the eyes and a large fan of cartilage crowning its head. “This is Nissi, member of the Security Force on Yrba.”

  Nissi’s cartilage fluttered, making Elma remember it was some sort of thick membrane instead. Hethans breathed from face orifices, and Girros could, but they mostly used their head fronds to filter and parse the air for specific nutrients and oxygen. She realized she should have done some additional biological research, but overall Hethans and Girros were fairly standard humanoid beings, so she’d glossed over that part.

  “Does the Trade Council often, personally, meet newcomers to the system, even without an appointment?” Selithra asked after introducing her crew. Elma noticed Nissi’s professional assessment of them and was rather gratified when the other being clearly marked them each as threats. She always did admire beings good at their jobs.

  “We received notice of incoming traffic. It has always behooved the Council to pay attention to those few who make the trip to our system, and even more so lately.” Mrive stepped to the side and gestured for the captain to walk alongside. Nissi dropped to the back, which made a spot between Elma’s shoulder blades itch. Both Sinan and Selithra had excellent panoramic vision—not quite seeing behind their own heads, but enough to catch suspicious motion, so Elma kept her hands empty at her sides as the itch trickled down her back.

  The light remained dim as they moved out of the docking corridor into the wider main hall of the station. They walked along a sort of boardwalk over a more populated walkway below. Tens of feet under them, stores, kiosks, and vendors lined the slightly curved walls, and beings of various shapes and limb-numbers wandered amongst them.

  Jillian slowed, dropping behind Elma and just ahead of Nissi.

  “The light kept low because you have eight eyes?” she asked, her tone measured enough to qualify as aggressively pleasant. “Sensitive?”

  “Hethans have sensitive eyes,” Nissi replied, and Elma wasn’t familiar enough with Girros to know if the being was unbothered or annoyed. “Girros can shift our eyelid protection to adapt to the light.”

  A subtle warning not to try blinding it. Elma ran a hand through her short hair, fluffing it up for something to do with fingers that wante
d to grab for a knife. In other circumstances, she might approve of such professionalism, but at the particular moment, it would feel better to cut a few throats and be done with it. Or cartilage-membrane-fronds, which seemed more vital to the Girros.

  The promoter was skilled enough at its job not to veer too far out of small talk, and before too long, their skybridge took them to a set of tall, dull-gray doors. Symbols glowing in soft purple light lined the archway, and a small opalescent circle protruded slightly from the wall to the left side of the doors.

  Placing a finger from three different hands on the circle, the Promoter stood out of the way as the doors slid open. Nissi made a noise the translator didn’t turn into a word, but the meaning was clear to all of them.

  Inside, various soft and stuffed surfaces studded the large, open space. Displays rotated through pictures and figures scrolled across the walls, and, while two corners had noticeably brighter light, overall, the dim, bluish-white of the hallways repeated in the room. A few beings sat or lounged near them, and none turned to look at their entrance, leaning instead over angled surfaces or scanning the walls.

  Elma tasked a portion of her brain to make meaning of the displays, and followed Mrive and her captain to a curve of deep blue cushions against the far wall. As they settled, small tables emerged from previously invisible slots in the floor, angling toward the new occupants and flashing a message that changed several times until it became legible.

  Menus to select refreshments, temperature, and shading of light. Elma dismissed the request on the table nearest her, and turned her face and some part of her attention toward the Promoter.

  “You can pull up the latest scans of the systems and our predictive models of which ships have gone where,” Mrive said, seating themselves at the end of the cushions. Nissi remained standing, staring with, at least, some of its eyes at some middle distance.

  “That is informative, Promoter Mrive.” Selithra pointed her ears forward attentively. “And also seems like something that could have been sent directly to our ship.”

  “Does it?” Mrive placed several of its hands on its lap. “We do not choose to send our predictive models over unsecured communications. How many ships did you notice within a day’s travel of the gates?”

  “None.”

  “Exactly. There was one, un-crewed, slingshotting around the gate for the sole purpose of listening in on what we might have to say. At least every other day, that happens, and we are likely missing some. We can only catch them at certain moments, when they flip, and their speed changes just enough for something to register on our models. Mostly, we attempt to trace them as they’re launched from one of these three weapons systems.” A fourth arm stretched out to a closer table, dialing up a map of the system that quickly highlighted the middle weapons stations.

  “Promoter, what, exactly, is going on in your system that you brought us here to discuss?”

  “Dissolution,” Mrive said plainly, and Sinan grunted softly in response. “Githan relations are falling apart. Neither Churang nor Hilmer speaks with a united voice, and the Security Force is splintering. Two-thirds still report to the Trade Council, but I’ve lost count of the number of factions across the two planets, never mind the moon settlements. The stations are predominantly ours.”

  “And?” Elma had no business talking, but she knew there had to be more. With that much blood in the water, predators were bound to move in.

  “A number of out-system ‘merchants’ have come to do business. Most bypass us entirely, and we either lose track of them, or they request salvage rights in the debris field.”

  “That…mess, by your primary, is a debris field?”

  “A few months ago…” Mrive sighed and ran yet another hand over its four eyes, all of which blinked in random order. “We aren’t entirely clear what happened, as accounts from our planet-based sources conflict. A portion of the fleet, private vehicles, and newly arrived merchants got into a pitched battle. Most were destroyed. Several were trying to use the primary as cover, to hide their various energy signatures, but there were a number of flares, chain reaction explosions, and now…”

  The pause stretched into a silence, and Elma itched to ask questions. Selithra’s overly still ears recommended against it, so she sat at perfect attention, holding her body rigid to keep her mouth under control.

  “We looked you up.” Unexpectedly, Nissi spoke, and even Mrive glanced over with several eyes. “The Venatrix hunts pirates and then negotiates for the return of their stolen goods. We’d like to reverse that order.”

  “We’ve done it that way as well,” Selithra allowed, folding her arms on her lap. “What do you propose?”

  “A loose assortment of so-called merchants arrived together, using their crowded arrival as an attempt to hide two other ships. Five of them were involved in the fight some months ago, but we’ve lost eyes on at least two. We received word through the gate that one, the Incisor, has very valuable cargo that another system wants back. If we secure it, they will send aid to help us shore up Githan before it breaks beyond recovery.”

  Selithra nodded, waiting. Jillian shifted slightly, her fingers tightening into fists before she smoothed them out again. Elma turned her eyes toward the displays to avoid drawing attention to her crewmate’s tension.

  “We will pay you ninety percent of the assayed value of the Incisor upon recovery, and any other pirate ship you recover or destroy. Given how long they’ve been in the system, we will commit to that being no less than twenty million.”

  Even the captain’s ears flattened slightly at that. A Trade Council never bid high, not at first. How desperate were they?

  Or, more importantly, how dangerous was the Incisor? Elma’s stomach tightened, adrenaline and excitement spiraling outward. Poor Dek—prey this good would definitely end in costly repairs.

  “You have the Security Force fleet. Why outsource such important work?”

  “Captain Selithra, you have our offer. Will you accept?” Mrive’s posture didn’t change, but it seemed the honesty had reached its end.

  Politics swirled in currents they couldn’t gauge. Likely some trap waited for them in a system that had cracked years ago and begun to spill its intestines into the void of space. The murkier the situation, the more vicious predators became. Higher stakes. Elma knew exactly what the captain would decide.

  “Thirty million minimum, and we will use fair market value from the Net to judge any increase beyond that.” At Mrive’s near-immediate nod, Selithra stood. “We have a deal.”

  After all had been signed and sealed, Nissi walked them back to Venatrix. This felt less like an escort, especially when the Girros lingered at the airlock.

  “Let me guess…” Jillian leaned against the station’s bulkhead, and Sinan and Elma turned at her voice. “One of these assholes took a ship of people you knew.”

  There was a long moment of silence, then Nissi nodded.

  “Someone you loved was on it, but the Trade Council wouldn’t let you out to strike back.”

  Another pause. Another nod.

  “So here’s the thing…” Elma interjected, leaning around Jillian. “Can you get leave from the Security Force?”

  It turned out, Nissi could.

  * * *

  “A training simulation won’t tell us everything,” Dekko grumbled, kicking his furred legs away from his pilot’s chair. “We don’t need someone new before a fresnickting thirty million credit job. What is he even good at?”

  “She, turns out. Highly trained with explosives.”

  “We’ve got explosives training. The Smilp-bots can handle it.”

  “No,” Elma corrected, gesturing dramatically. “Highly trained, and she loves them. We let her blow something up, she’s probably with us for life.”

  “Seems risky, this big a mission.” Dekko glowered at his most put-upon.

  “You’re not wrong,” Sinan agreed, surprising the glare right off his face. “It’s risky, so is the job, so are
our lives. It’s her system, she’s all the way pissed, and she handled herself well in those hallways. Tense situation, and she showed her training.”

  “Also, it’s her system.” For this conversation, even Jillian had come to the bridge, though she lingered by the door. “The Council wants to keep her benched. Let’s get her into the game.”

  “You humans and your games.” Dekko had registered the similarity to his own experience, and resignation shifted to acceptance. “I’ll vote yes, but someone keep a muzzle on her until we know.”

  “Unanimous,” Selithra confirmed, punching a message into her console. “On both counts.”

  Jillian nodded and slid out of the bridge, Elma following.

  “You going to tell her?” Elma asked, trying to decipher the human’s mood.

  “Captain sent her a contract already. I’m going to see what kinds of weapons she wants on hand. You go sort through the intel the Council gave us and figure out the best place to find the Incisor or one of those other ships.”

  “Easy as shooting a Mark Six.” Elma flipped her cheerful two-handed salute and ran ahead to her quarters.

  * * *

  “Two down, one to go.” Selithra stared at the maps Elma had highlighted, tapping her fist on the edge of her console. “This one’s for all the credit. How sure are you, El?”

  “Ninety…three?” Elma cocked her head, chewing on the back of her wrist as she thought. “Ninety-two. I really thought that last one would be the Incisor, but we’re running out of places they’d be hiding. The debris field in this position gives them space to angle for either planet pretty quickly, with plenty of cover. They run dark, send out drones to fry their target ship’s systems, pull the dead ship back into the debris field, and take their time cracking it open. No one can fish out their signature in all that noise.”